Richie Madyira’s “Kuseri Kwezviso Zvakanaka”: A Cape Town Celebration of Black Dandyism in Dialogue with the Met Gala 2025.
- Staff Writer
- 16 hours ago
- 3 min read
by artweb
Richie Madyira’s solo exhibition Kuseri Kwezviso Zvakanaka, currently showing at artHARARE in Cape Town since April 2025, finds itself in remarkable conversation with the global cultural phenomenon of the 2025 Met Gala. While the Met Gala dazzled in New York with its theme “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” a celebration of Black dandyism and the nuanced history of Black self-fashioning, Madyira’s vibrant figurative works in Cape Town speak to similar themes with equal depth and power, offering a Southern African perspective rooted in lived experience and personal testimony.
Madyira, a Zimbabwean artist now based in Cape Town, presents a body of work that celebrates the everyday elegance and quiet dignity of migrants in South Africa. What distinguishes his paintings is not just their bold and expressive use of oil paint, but his remarkable incorporation of fabric into the canvas itself. These collaged textiles are not mere embellishment—they are integral to the storytelling. They reference the very materials that clothe and empower his subjects. Fabric in Madyira’s work becomes a language of identity, weaving together the threads of personal history, cultural pride, and aspiration. In doing so, he collapses the boundary between fashion and fine art, making the canvas a place where style becomes substance.
This fusion is nowhere more poignant than in the artwork African Swag, a piece that strikingly depicts A$AP Rocky, one of the co-chairs of the 2025 Met Gala and a global icon of avant-garde Black fashion. By choosing Rocky as a subject, Madyira places his own practice in dialogue with the international stage, echoing the very themes of the Met’s 2025 exhibition curated by Andrew Bolton and Monica L. Miller. That exhibition, titled “Superfine,” explored the ways Black individuals have historically used fashion to craft identity and assert resistance from 18th-century tailoring to contemporary streetwear. Similarly, Madyira’s figures, clad in fabric and oil, are not only portraits, they are declarations. They announce their presence in the world with pride, color, and undeniable flair.
What makes Madyira’s approach especially resonant is how these sartorial choices are tied to resilience. His characters are often working-class Zimbabweans and immigrants in South Africa who, despite economic and social marginalization, find joy and self-worth in dressing well—especially on weekends after long days of labor. It is in these moments of celebration that the transformative power of fashion shines, echoing the celebratory ethos of events like the Met Gala but grounded in the grit and grace of daily life.
The synergy between Madyira’s exhibition and the Met Gala has not gone unnoticed. In response to the timely and thematic resonance, artHARARE's chief curator and founder Richard Mudariki has extended Kuseri Kwezviso Zvakanaka until May 23th. This extension offers Cape Town viewers the opportunity to engage with a show that mirrors the conversations happening in New York but does so through a lens of uniquely African authenticity. It is, in effect, a Met Gala of its own - intimate, local, and profoundly moving.
Through his use of fabric and oil colour, Madyira redefines what it means to dress the part, not as costume, but as commentary. These paintings stand as vibrant testaments to the power of self-fashioning, cultural pride, and artistic ingenuity. In bringing together the worlds of fashion and fine art, Madyira’s work not only aligns with global conversations but also deepens them, reminding us that style, especially Black style, is as much about survival and self-respect as it is about spectacle.
Kuseri Kwezviso Zvakanaka is on view at artHARARE, 129 Bree Street, Cape Town, until May 23 , 2025.
